Although traditional international relations and geopolitical theoretical frameworks presume that countries must hold powerful Armed Forces to preserve their sovereignty and survive in an anarchical system, these models of analysis have limited capacity to understand peripheral countries such as Brazil. Considering that Brazil has maintained peace with its neighbours and with global powers without possessing strong Armed Forces, this chapter has two main goals. Firstly, it proposes an enlarged epistemology to explain how peripheral states avoid wars. Secondly, based on this broader view of the issue, it examines the most important natural, tangible, and intangible sources of power used by Brazil to dissuade potential aggressions. We conclude that Brazil’s most important assets in the construction of its strategy to assure peace are its natural sources of power (the size of its territory and population), a tangible source (its economy), and intangible sources of power (its diplomatic professionalism and its peaceful strategic culture). These assets decrease the amount of military power that Brazil needs to avoid wars. It can be said, therefore, that this is a country that maintains a unique dissuasion apparatus, one that is based on tools that minimise the importance of a credible defence system. The main contribution of the chapter is to examine how peripheral countries avoid wars. We argue, in sum, that their Armed Forces, in specific circumstances, can become less important than economic, natural, and ideational sources of power.